


Depth Perception

by rhythmickorbit



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Dealing with injuries, Disfigurement, Drow, Drow Culture, Elves, Gen, General existential stuff, Ghaunadaur - Freeform, Keeping Watch, Past Relationships, Tieflings, Warlocks, injuries, introspective, past trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmickorbit/pseuds/rhythmickorbit
Summary: "Beware the drow with the ravaged side," they say. "She will wear your face as she kills you, watched by the sleeper of acid-green eyes."Alaunvin's life, her fears, and, eventually, her friends.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes, Vin swore that she could see through her left side. It was only when she was startled from an approach in that direction did she remember, did the pain come back. Other times, it was only when she happened to glance at a still pool of water did she grimace in disgust, her mind rejecting the figure there. That was all for dramatics, though— she didn’t  _ truly  _ feel disgust at her new visage, for plenty of her brethren had worse scars shown proudly and in the open. Vin supposed that it had more to do with people— a certain person— recognizing her. 

But that certain person was dead, and the people she was with now knew only her current face.

She sat at the edge of the camp now, listening with pricked ears to the sounds of the jungle— lush, alive, and all too reminiscent of the woods where she and Orialei once met. If Vin concentrated, she could almost smell her love’s perfume, half-smoky and half-crushed mint.

Vin rubbed her face, hand freezing as it brushed the bumpy scars on the left side. The muscles around the marred socket twitched, as if to move an eye no longer there. She shook her head, pulling her hand away immediately. It was useless to dwell on the past— she had a harder reality to deal with, involving a jungle, a patron, and people that by all accounts she should not be getting attached to.

She glanced at the sky, which was peeking milky-blue through the clustered jungle canopy. Dawn was approaching. Vin turned to the sleeping figure next to her— Jaden had fallen asleep hours ago, her tiny frame tired from the long trek. She nudged her gently, and the tiny tiefling sat bolt-upright, terror in her eyes.

“It’s time to get moving, little shadow,” Vin rasped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one cares about my dnd character but me. I don't care though, because I adore her... I'll write a similar story for my other main character, but for now its a trip to the edge w your favorite disfigured drow <3
> 
> Also the party dynamics are A+.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vin has a chat with Balfred.

“Why do you tolerate them, dwarf?” Vin asked one day, looking ahead to the halfling child and the man in the comical bearskin. It was difficult  _ not _ to look— the gaudy blue costume and the barely-loincloth were something else, something more ridiculous than Vin’s life itself, which was an accomplishment. “You are likely the most competent out of your tiny group— why not forge your own life? You must have had something before this.”

Balfred’s eyes glazed over, as they often did. Vin wondered why she even asked— the dwarf was out of his mind most of the time, hardly in a state to think, much less be adventuring. Before she could turn away and forget about it, however, the old man spoke.

“I had a life before this,” he said, “on the high seas. I was rich beyond compare, with comrades and countless adventures behind me.” Vin opened her mouth to speak, but Balfred continued. “It ended, though. Ended in blood and myself alone. Then, I met Bruce Mane’s grandfather, and— the rest is history, I suppose.”

“Relegating yourself to a servant, though? If you had such dignity, why give it up?”

“I didn’t give it up. It was sundered from me. Sundered like blood, taken against my will… My friends dying at my feet, the water stained red. No, Alaunvin, I am better here, without any dignity at all.” Balfred’s gaze drifted into a time, to a place that Vin couldn’t go— she could only assume that he was somewhere on the crest of a wave, imaginary adrenaline rushing through his veins.

_ “Bluejay!”  _ called the halfling child in the distance, far further than Vin felt comfortable with. She glanced at Balfred, but the old man perked up, his pace miraculously quickening.

“Now, Brick Mason!” he called. “Do behave, we are in a jungle!”

“That is not ‘Brick Mason’, Balfred!” the human— Bruce— bellowed. “That is Bluejay, the hero from the shadows!”

Vin frowned a little bit— she supposed that she could understand this, then; the oddity, the showmanship. Balfred’s past was as painful as her own, but he had found other people to fill the void, at least temporarily.

Still, she wondered why he whimpered the name of a “Bill” in his sleep in the dead of night as he shivered in his thin coat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No character here except Alaunvin is mine~
> 
> The characters, for reference:
> 
> Balfred Pettycoat (dwarven cleric)  
> Bearman/Bruce Mane (human barbarian)  
> Brick Mason (halfling rogue)  
> Jaden (tiefling warlock)  
> Karreem aka Cream (human fighter)  
> Ayla Zelendon (wood elf ranger)  
> and Ayla's wolf (whose name i forget!)


End file.
